Happiness, Balance and Progress

One of my friends updated her status on the facebook with "Remember that...frankly...I just wanted to be happy in the first place". I have no idea why she got so sentimental all of a sudden cause she seems to be a happy person to me. Another friend constantly expressing her view on how her boss has been wrong and, in fact, so many other people should have done things the different ways (her ways). She also smiles all the time but deep down she is not exactly a happy soul. Being happy is such a common wish for all of us but many of us seem to have forgotten about it when we charge forward in our career in today's highly competitive world!

People say "let go", "forgive", "forget", "take it easy" and other "Zen" stuff to achieve happiness. I agree. However, in most cases it is at the expense of the progress. I remember one of my friends (a decade ago in the last millennium....sounds like such long time ago lol) told me that he regretted being "happy" and "laid back" that he did not accumulate much wealth to pay for the medical bills for his children and his parents after certain age. That's a very very hard reality in life.

I tend to say that I am insecure and I overwork myself. However, I like to think that I am quite happy because I "embrace", "enjoy" and "accept the consequence" of what I do. I do not "let go", I do not "forget", I do not "take it easy" and I have no right to "forgive" others. Things that I do are simply the things that I think I need to do to balance short term joy and long term objectives survival and sustainability. There is no right or wrong but risk and reward! I joke and label myself a gambler as I make decision in work, home and whatever. The outcome will never be as I expected, hopefully for the better. However, I simply accept the risk of what I do and there are potential negative consequences.

We all need to improve our life not so much in spending and wasting resources but our instinct drive us to prolong our species as programmed in our DNA. Thus working days and nights to invent new technologies to make our life easier, less risker, more comfortable and so forth so the human race life long and prosper is simply something we all do anyway. Just that in the process so far we have manage to over consume what the environment can support. Balance and happiness may not be achieved all the time but at the end new invention, new knowledge makes the next generation better and more progressive. After all people learn and improve all the time!

So let's go my friends! Just go ahead to do what we think we need to do. We, ourselves, may not be the beneficiary of our work but this is just us, part of the human race.

I like to think that I am happy because I embrace life as it is. Be it a hard one or be it a good one. Going through the ups and downs in life is simply romantic (not that I have a lot of ups and downs). Just Embrace and Accept. I think it's better than forgive and forget!